Tasting your own Blood

The world is a place of entertainment,  experience and enjoyment. Myriad things form part of the place we call earth. Shopping malls, fast cars, Theater, Sports Arena, Sky scrapers, Cruise ships, ski resorts, Temples, Hospitals, Hospices and so many many other things. News keeps us entertained, new ideas keep us excited. Gadgets bring you delight. In this seemingly never ending sequence of events, there seems to be many sources for happiness.

A tiny little tale from the ancient lore, talks about a dog chewing on a dry bone, and as it keeps chewing, its gums begin to bleed, mistaking the blood to be coming from the bone, the dog chews even more enthusiastically, and tasting its own blood and feeling happy.

The happiness we derive out of objects and events and people and places, are compared to the happiness derived from the bone. The world in itself is like the dry bone and cannot provide happiness, it is the inherent happiness in our own self that gets expressed by engaging with the world. The wise understand this fallacy and give little importance to the events of the world.

There are two parts to this story, the first lets us know that the world is not the source of happiness, and hence we can care less about it and be blissful ourselves. This tells us that a fancy car, or a luxurious house is not essential for us to be happy. Though they provide us with comforts we need not crave for it mistaking for the source of happiness. 

The second part tells us that though the bone is not the source for the blood, and similarly the world is not the source for happiness, the bone does enable the dog to taste its own blood. Similarly the world enables us to reflect our own happiness on it and express itself. Similar to the Sun unable to see itself, can only see its very own light by being reflected by objects outside, the world and its events provides us with materials to reflect our own happiness.

Knowing this, and putting the world in its right place, liberates us from the cravings of specific events and possession of objects, titles and stuff and enables us lead a joyful life.

Perfect imperfection

We all are perfectionists at various levels. We need certain things in a certain way. We want people to obey traffic rules, our kids to listen to us, our neighbors to be friendly, a plastic free world, and our politicians to be corruption-free, well that desire we have overcome. Point is we have our set of things to be in a way we want them to be, and certain other things we learn to live with.

Our experiences are only interpretations of events. Events themselves lack the power to create an experience, its our faculty of interpretation that enables us to experience things. As we get to understand this, we learn to see the happenings of life, in a different manner. Be it day to day events, or life altering things. As we become more refined in this, and we begin taking things on our stride, life gets into a monotonic rhythm. 

Then out of the blue something happens that makes you go mad beyond your wildest dreams. Now how did that happen? In spite of our composure, and our complete understanding of the meaninglessness of life, and the fallacy of taking anything hard, some events do get us! This is the greatest feature of life! It keeps bringing up surprises, and makes you feel alive. You think you have got it all, and then this happens!

A totally desire less state will liberate us from the negativity of such situations, contemplating on the nature of reality, and beauty and depth of this creation, helps us stay at the right distance from life.

The world is an illusion, and the frameworks of likes and dislikes create endless structures for living. Realizing this, and staying in this knowledge, helps us get back on our feet after feeling the blow that life just gave. If you think about it, this life is indeed perfectly imperfect!

Letting Go vs Giving Up

We have all been here more often than we would like to be. There comes a point in life when we need to separate. It could be a thing, a person, a role, or any of the things that have been part of our life for a while, and has been of an apparent source of happiness.

The thing that has been providing happiness to us is the last thing we want to part with. That is because the only thing that we all seek is happiness. When the thing stops being a source of happiness, or is not providing the amount of happiness you were used to, then the thing becomes less of a concern. Letting go is not much of an issue. One may miss the moments of happiness that the thing provided in the past, but since the present is no longer the same, we are in a way Ok to let go of it.

Then there are things, that have provided happiness in the past, and seem to have the potential to give you happiness, but that don't seem to. Here there is a struggle. You try to somehow make this thing give you happiness. You do several things, you wait, you hope. Once there comes a point where its no longer giving you happiness, you let go. Since for a while the mind is used to it not giving you happiness , it doesn't bother you much. One may think of this either as letting go, or giving up. 

Giving up produces a negative image of the situation. Its like you stopped trying.  You keep trying to fix something, or get to some point, and then you stopped it. But if we allow the mind to run its course, it will eventually stop trying and also be comfortable at it. But sometimes a little regret lingers around.

If one thinks about it, it will become clear that Letting Go and Giving Up are essentially the same thing. While the former lends a more graceful transition. The real difference is one strengthens the Ego, while the other weakens it. Letting Go gracefully strengthens the ego, it makes the ego look bigger in spite of the loss. while giving up weakens it. so it is generally easy to assume the position of Letting Go, rather than Giving Up.

Fact of the matter is, separation happens, not because you Let Go, or you Gave Up. It is part of the Change we call life. Change is the secret of this Life. Separation and loss are a mere part of it providing you yet another experience.

Once this is known, and we realize that we neither Let Go of anything, nor do we Give up, but separation 'happens' as part of this long chain of events called life, we begin to enjoy life.

Freedom

Freedom is something all of us want. We all have our definitions of what freedom is.

Let us consider Freedom as being the opposite of imprisonment. For whatever reason someone commits a crime. Sometimes this could have been also wrong judgement. So one lands up in prison.

All the freedom one possessed is now lost.

The initial days of the prison life is very confusing, there is no focus, there is delusion, there is experience of surrealism. The initial days of fear are overcome eventually. Prison life becomes routine.

One has to simply go in cycles, day after day, without any purpose. The only purpose if any is to get out of the prison.

It takes a while to realize that there is really no purpose of the prison. And that there is no object inside the prison that can give real happiness. The only happiness can be freedom. Any event or object that makes us forget that we are in the prison seems to give us happiness. But once the reality is remembered, those objects no longer make us happy.

Life continues. Over a period we forget that we were once a free bird. We become "institutionalized". And you either "get busy living or get busy dying".

One among us somehow continues to remember his free life. He continues to hold on to hope. After realizing that a normal good behaviour will not get him freedom, he plans secretly on an escape.

He makes an attempt, if hes lucky he gets out and is free. If he is unlucky, he gets back to a much more rigorous imprisonment. Making his freedom almost impossible.

One fine day, based on his extremely good conduct, a prisoner gets released. He is back into the free world. He is extremely happy. This happiness is permanent , since he is no longer a prisoner. He need not get to the prison any more!

No matter what the means, he is now free. liberated. Once he is free, he has a natural tendency to help the prisoners inside to escape. Some do follow his tips and get out. But most others who are now completely institutionalized, do not listen to him, they are either convinced that he will get into trouble, or he has lost his mind.

The person who has tasted freedom, doesn't care about what all happened to him while in prison, He doesn't care about how he was wrongly convicted, or all the unpleasant, undesirable events that happened inside. All that matters to him now is he is no longer a prisoner. he has a full life of freedom to live.

Life without the true knowledge of Who I am, is like prison. Life itself is not a prison. The world and its worldly objects are not imprisonment, but the life that is experienced without the self-knowledge is like imprisonment.

People take all kinds of efforts to get out of the sometimes meaningless, repetitive life. But all such actions results in them becoming more and more entangled. and it takes more and more effort to get a glimpse of the happiness that used to be available abundantly in childhood.

There is not a single person who looks back at "good old times". For most of us those "glorious days are over". There are few among us, who appears always happy, like a child is even in adulthood, even when all kinds of trouble is surrounding the person seems unperturbed. He is a hopeful person. He knows there is a way out.

He follows the time tested methods to obtain the self-knowledge systematically. One fine day he realises who he is! Once the truth is known, once the reality is experienced, the life becomes a joy. The very same life and its objects and events that one experienced before, becomes a source of enjoyment. the intermittent and diluted happiness that became rarer by the day, now suddenly became abundantly available.

Once a person gets the true knowledge, all the events of an ignorant past become instantly irrelevant. All the so called unhappy and undesirable events are a now non existent past. there is now a whole new life to lead with full of freedom.

SIx Steps To Enlightenment

(1) RECOGNIZE THE SUFFERING

The world is a mixture of things that seems to defy explanation. There are so many questions without a convincing answer. The world is full of duality of Success/failure, Love/hate, Fame/Infamy, Good/Evil etc. The experiences that one has is not always what is desired.

why so? Why cannot everything be in plenty? Why is the world Unfair at times? Why is there war, crime? Why is there a partiality?, How big is the Universe, what exists outside the Universe, are there aliens? How come my honest, great efforts do not produce the desired result? questions of this nature are endless. All of us have them.

The set of questions will vary as many as there are individuals. Whether it is knowledge, or material possessions, or achievements, we are all in some specific level. some are in the negative and want to just get to that Zero mark. Some are in the Zero and want to get into positive territory. Some are very well into the positive, but are having difficulty in handling the infinite possibilities.

No matter how much we achieve there is still a desire. And the trouble is we all feel a lack of happiness due to such experiences and more so with the lack of an explanation. Most of us settle into the attitude "Life's Like that" and use some kind of temporary sedative such as entertainment, travel, other such experiences, more so to take the mind off the problem, so we can live to face another day.

First step is to recognize the existence of such a problem and ponder over it. The fact that you are reading this implies you are searching for Joy which means you sense a lack of it and hence you are already in Step 1:) You can list all the questions and issues that are bothering and preventing you from being Joyful.

(2) ASSUME AN EXPLANATION

Assume that there is in fact such an explanation. Let us assume there is a complete and convincing explanation that answers all our questions absolutely correctly. Please be very clear that we are "assuming" the existence of such an explanation. So we need not worry about validating it at this point.

Now.. it is hard to abstractly assume the existence of something without knowing some details. For this only purpose of ‘helping us assume’, let us take the theory called K-Theory.

What is K-theory? All human beings are engaged in action all the time. some actions are good, some are bad, some are neutral. Actions that result in desirable situations for others are good, that which results in undesirable situations for others are bad. rest of the actions are neutral. All good and bad actions are accumulated. so says the K-Theory.

This accumulated K has a role to play in the result of all our actions. apart from the effort we put in, the accumulated K is factored in, when the result is produced. This somewhat explains why there is no direct relationship between effort and effect. so somebody who simply did not touch the book gets a high score. we have an explanation to this...well.. somewhat.

We ask what about new born babies which have serious health problems? how come I am not born to a King? answer according to K-Theory is, there are multitude of births, and the good/bad K gets accumulated across the births. and K from past births play a role in the present. OK.. this is logical and sounds OK.

Also our actions and the results will create preferences or like/dislike which also gets accumulated and which drives us into action. preferences create desire, desire results in action, since the successful fulfillment of a desire seems to give us a very desirable experience called happiness. since this experience is not permanent, we are constantly engaged in action. so goes the K-theory.

Now we may ask what makes people different? why do different people act differently in exact same situation? Do we have an explanation for that? Yes we do. That is explained by the A-E-M Theory. Again, this is only an assumption.

So what’s the deal with AEM Theory? Everything in the world is made up of three ingredients, Aura, Energy and Matter. Each has its own characteristic. People including their body and mind are made up of varying combinations of A-E-M. Also this combination keeps changing all the time. It depends on food we eat, the time of day etc. And this results in varying behavior among various people. This is what we mean when we say "that is his nature". Application of this theory does seem to give us a very good explanation for all day to day events in life.

But we need to still remember this is only an assumption. so no question of what is the proof that K-theory/AEM is true.

(3) I AM NOT THE BODY AND HENCE I CANNOT SUFFER

Now that we have got an explanation, let us see how it can help me regain my happiness. I understand the K-theory, it seems to be a working explanation. But it does not make me any happy.

If I am beggar, I still suffer thinking why should I commit such bad actions and suffer like this today?. The answer to that lies in the part of the assumed K-theory which says every single person undergoes countless, if not endless number of births.

This implies that the person who gets born, grows, lives, becomes old and dies, is reborn again. Reborn again with a different brand new body and mind. because every time someone is born, it is always a very young baby with a fresh mind without any recollection of the past.

So what does this mean? the person is not the body nor the mind. and all our sufferings of duality, are related only to the body and mind. Success is associated either with the body as in a physical feat such as an Olympic medal, or the mind, as in getting a Nobel prize. A person with lots of friends and one without any suffers mentally. so there is the mind suffering not the person. applying this on all sufferings, and all situations that provided undesirable experiences will clarify that the person is not suffering. Also, a person will be born a king in another birth even though he is a beggar in this.

Now let us not forget that all of this nicety is still hanging on the assumption that the K-theory is indeed true.

(4) WHO AM I?

Having established (based on the assumption) that I am not the body/mind. the natural question now is to find out Who am I? So far we have been just creating a sequence of statements based on an assumption.

This is a practical step, which is similar to a science experiment. This has to be performed. Most of us assume we are the body. some do think they are their cars, they are their beautiful home, they are their Country etc. Let us begin at the body, since it is a reasonable starting point.

Am I the body? my body changes from childhood to old age, I can get some of the parts replaced, and so on. yet since I have a distinct feeling of myself in spite of these changes, and since I 'observe' such events happening to the body, I must be independent of the body. Hence we can conclude I am not the body

Am I life? Blood is circulating and I am aware of it, so I am not the flow of blood, heart is beating I can observe it, I am not the heart beat, I cam observe my breath and hence I cannot be my breath. and so on.. so I must be independent of all these. Hence we can conclude that I am not the life.
Am I the mind? Thoughts of indecision, and likes and dislikes etc keep rising all the time. Do I like this?, Do I hate this?, should I do this?, should I do that?, thoughts based on impulse etc.. All these thoughts constitute the mind. But since I am able to observe them I must be independent of them. Hence we can conclude that I am not the mind

Am I the intelligence? Thoughts that make decisions, conclusions, inferences and plans in a sequence etc. constitute our intelligence. Since I am able to observe such thoughts rising , I should be independent of them as well. Hence we can conclude that I am not the intelligence

Am I the Happiness experience? Certain situations, actions and events results in us experiencing happiness. But I am aware of me having such an experience at certain times and not having such experience at certain other times. Hence I am independent of this experience. Hence we can conclude that I am not the happiness experience.

We can continue this on and on, and we will conclude that Since I am independent of the observable/perceivable I am able to observe. and hence I cannot be anything that is observable/perceivable.
Only a thing that has no attributes such as shape, form, size, volume, weight, position, speed, temperature, color etc.. etc.. can be unperceivable/unobservable. But everything in this world, has some attribute or the other. So.. anything that is in this world cannot be me!

This is a real conclusion, based on the inquiry into who am I. and since it does not depend upon the assumptions we made earlier, this is an independent Fact. This leads to the immediate question, if I am not in this world... then where am I?

(5) WORLD IS AN ILLUSION

Anything that exists in this world cannot be me.. or in other words, I am nowhere to be found in this world But yet I am absolutely sure that I exist. If not who is indeed doing this exercise? So, How is this possible?

It is possible only if Me and the World belong to two different orders of reality, two different planes of existence. Very similar to the Dreamer and the dream. And similar to the dreamer, I am more real that the world, since I observe/aware of the world while the world is not aware of me!

This implies that the world that I experience, including the space and time and people and events and thoughts and what not, is a lower order of reality, which exists purely under the support of me.

I am the reality which gives existence to the world. The entire world is indeed an illusion! This is a dramatic Fact. Again this is totally independent of any assumptions.

(6) RECOGNIZE THE MISSING SUFFERING

This takes us back to the assumptions now. Since the whole world that we experience is nothing but an illusion, very distinct from the reality, which is me, any explanation about the functioning of the illusion is irrelevant.
At most academic. Hence if the K-theory is perfect then we can use it, if it is lacking someplace we can try to fix it and make it perfect. Also, we can choose to not worry about the K-theory, or an explanation to the illusion. We can take the stand that since the purpose of the illusion is entertainment, it is essential that everything is not completely explained.

This knowledge that we have obtained beyond a shred of doubt, that the world is an illusion, and that I am the only reality, instantly removes all the suffering caused by the innumerable experiences that appear to be undesirable and the innumerable questions that did not have answers.

Now is a good time to check the questions and issues that we listed in Step1.

Since there is no more suffering, what do you think you are left with? Pure Joy ! Let us Enjoy this wonderful experience.

This is Enlightenment!